Sports is the new hero in Kollywood

CHENNAI: Sports is emerging as the new hero in Kollywood. Running abreast of village-based small films with unknown actors directed by debutants, sports-based themes are slowly warming up. "It's a tricky business since cinema-goers are not tuned into all games, including cricket, but sports seems to be the new hero" says Venkat Prabhu, who directed the 2007 sleeper hit Chennai 28' which revolved around locality cricket.
Pick any year and say jallikkattu' to anyone in rural Tamil Nadu, and chances are he would rattle off Aranganallur match statistics like you and I would of FIFA or IPL.But the younger adolescents of the state, newly into cricket in the last decade or so, are scripting a new trend for Kollywood. After last year's Vennila kabbadi kuzhu', this year's Kalavani' saw the film opening with a boys' cricket match which draws entire villages. On the cards is another cricket film Patta patti,' where cricketer Sadagopan Ramesh, playing himself, takes the game to a village.
"Sports, especially cricket, is emerging as a new genre in Tamil cinema, and small films with new faces are emerging as an agent of change. It is exciting times for filmmakers," says Venkat Prabhu. Lee,' a film on football in 2007 did not quite score a goal, but two years later, Vennila kabbadi kuzhu,' swept the audience of the feet. "I come from a family of kabbadi players, but being a filmmaker, and although this game is popular in villages, I wanted to take the story to both village and urban audiences. It was a tricky one, but it succeeded" said Suseendran, director of the move. As for Lee,' a director says, it didn't click because the theme tried to mix, unconvincingly, football with goondaism.
Unlike Bollywood which had Hurray' Boxer' and All Rounder' all releasing in 1984, and a host of other films in the wake of Lagaan' in 2001, and Chak de' (2007), Tamil cinema has not seen a deluge of sports themes. " Lagaan' and Chak de' worked because of big names like Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh, but with unknown names in small films, as is done in Tamil, the task is much harder, say directors. "Although cricket has penetrated into rural areas because of satellite channels, it is only the younger generation which is into cricket. The scene of villagers turning up in large numbers to watch children play a cricket match in Kalavani' is true to life," says Yuvaraj, director, Patta patti'. Fifteen years ago, villagers were into football, kabbadi and jallikkattu', not cricket, he points out.
If the hunger among movie-goers for the new and the off-beat is the clincher, sports appears all set for a home run in Kollywood.